Category Archives: Personality

By, Adam K. Fetterman“This Season, Celebrate REASON”, reads an American Atheists billboard by the Lincoln Tunnel. This is another in a long line of billboards and signs reminding people that atheists are out there. The apparent goal of this campaign is to let “closeted” atheists know that they are not alone. This seems particularly necessary during the holiday season as atheists may feel more like they are in the minority than other times of the year. For some, this time of the year requires them to pretend to be religious for fear of social reprisal. Therefore, being reminded (e.g. by billboards) that they are not alone can definitely have positive effects. However, as to be expected, the religious community (mostly Christian) is not responding with acceptance and positivity (though some are). Some have said the billboards are disrespectful and attacking. So, in response, religious organizations are putting up billboards of their own. According to the New York Times, there appears to be a quite interesting sign battle going on in Texas. The atheists’ sign reads “Millions of Americans are Good Without God” on the side of the bus, followed by a truck with a sign reading “I Still Love You – God” and another claiming “2.1 billion Christians are good with God”. While it would be a fairly funny scene to witness, it hits on an old argument about where morality comes from.

For many years, many have assumed that religion is the foundation or source of morality or pro-social behavior. In a recent review, Preston, Ritter, and Hernandez (2010) indicate that religion does not have a monopoly on morality and pro-social behavior. In fact, they indicate that religiosity only predicts moral or pro-social behavior in specific contexts and can actually predict increased anti-social behavior in certain contexts. The authors go on to discuss the differences between religious and supernatural beliefs in regards to moral and pro-social behaviors.

Another researcher arguing that religion is not the ultimate source of morality and pro-social behavior is Sam Harris. He has found (as well as others) quite compelling evidence of naturalistic or evolutionary foundations of morality and pro-social behavior. In fact, I have made arguments about certain motivations that would lead all people to be moral, in previous posts. In the end, it appears to be pretty clear that one can be “Good without God”. With some of the reactions to these billboards (e.g. defacing and anger), it seems apparent that religiosity does automatically make one moral.

A recent trend in cable television is paranormal investigation shows. For example, the SyFy channel has Ghost Huntersand A&E has Paranormal State. The point of these shows is to investigate claims of the paranormal and then confirm or debunk them. While certain shows do a fairly good job of at least “trying” to debunk the claims, others make no clear attempt. For instance, many, if not all, of these shows feature a time of “investigation” in which the main “characters” try to communicate with the spirit world. They do so by asking the “ghosts” to make a noise or make themselves appear. Usually they will come up with some sort of noise or evidence and conclude that, “indeed, there is a presence!” The first problem here is that, in order to properly debunk such events, one must not believe in them in the first place, or at least have some education in explaining psychological or natural experiences. However, the main issue is that a truly skeptical person will take the evidence of a random noise in response to a question as chance occurrence that is more likely to be explained statistical randomness. One the other hand, a paranormal believer would dismiss that event as chance and explain it paranormally.

This is what is known as the conjunction fallacy. According to Rogers, Davis, & Fisk (2008), indeed those who believe in the paranormal, are more susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than non-believers. Furthermore, they found that those less educated in math, statistics and psychology were more susceptible as well. Therefore, when two not-so-rare events occur (i.e. talking and a bump in the night), paranormal believers make the error in concluding that both events occurring simultaneously was too improbable to be coincidence. Based on previous findings, Rogers and colleagues suggest that this happens because those that believe in the paranormal have less understanding of chance and randomness. In closing, it is obvious that these shows are for purely entertainment value and most people would not tune in if they didn’t find “evidence” of the paranormal. However, it does seem troublesome to perpetuate a lack of rational and logical reasoning skills.

In a couple weeks: Why some are motivated to believe in the paranormal?

By, Adam K. Fetterman
Catholicism has not had a good last couple years/decades. This has been particularly true recently with the scandals involving the pope and child abuse. So, it would seem like a good idea to take some focus off these situations and lighten things up a bit. This is what they have done recently. According, to the Time website, the Vatican’s official newspaper has declared Homer Simpson as a Catholic. This is odd to most fans because Homer, and the rest of the Simpson flock (minus Lisa who proclaims to be a Buddhist), are clearly and openly protestant. Specifically with Homer, some could probably argue that he is not even a protestant. They use a couple examples of why Homer is a Catholic, but most appear to be reflective of Christianity in general, not to mention that most of the Catholicism references in the show are mocking in nature. Why might someone, or thing, come to such an odd belief, such as Homer Simpson being of their religion?

One possible explanation may come from what is known as the “false consensus effect” (Ross, Greene, & House, 1977). According to a review by Baumeister, Dale, & Sommer (1998), this effect is a type of projection in which individuals have a bias to think that others’ traits are similar to their own. So, it may, for whatever motivation, be that the Vatican newspaper writers are projecting their own traits or beliefs on what they perceive as a well liked popular figure, and Homer is definitely that. Another weird thing that people might notice is that Family Guy’s Griffin family is actually Catholic, but the Vatican decided against mentioning them. However, it probably would not be considered a positive to associate oneself with a show as “controversial” as that one.

Before someone comments that the Vatican paper was arguing that Homer represents what a good Catholic should be. This may be so, but that was not clear in the Time piece linked here. Furthermore, one would have to ignore a considerable amount of aspects of the show to consider The Simpsons as reflecting good Catholic values. However, relative to the Griffins in Family Guy, one could see how they would like to associate themselves with the “tamer”, and more loved, Simpsons family. Don’t we all?

A recent study by Soraya Mehdizadeh has made the news because it made an interesting connection between Facebook profiles and personality traits like narcissism. The study found that the more times a person checked Facebook, the higher they scored on narcissism. Also, there was a significant relationship between self-promotional content and narcissism scales. According to the study, for women self promotional content tended to include images of “revealing, flashy and adorned photos of their physical appearance” while for men, their “about me” descriptions highlighted their intelligence and wit. However, the study also finds that people with low self-esteem also check their Facebook pages more often.

The link between self-esteem and narcissism has been hard to understand for years despite ample research on both topics. According to a review done by Bossom and colleagues the problem in understanding the connections between narcissism and self-esteem is that some research has shown that narcissism is actually a mask to hide low self-esteem, but other research has failed to show this pattern. According to the review there are several subtypes of narcissism that have different relationships with self-esteem. Furthermore, the research on self-esteem shows that different aspects of the self may be being measured depending on the type of self-esteem measure being used.

The research on Facebook adds an interesting piece to the puzzle as it reveals the way in which both low self-esteem and narcissism are manifesting as the same behaviour on social networking site. The mask theory of narcissism (that it is used to mask low self-esteem) might make sense here as people’s grandiose view of themself is being broadcasted through constant use and updating of their Facebook profiles; while a need for validation that goes along with deeper low self-esteem is driving them to seek instant feedback (something Facebook can uniquely provide) from their friends.

Am I the only one that loves to hear a story when a supposed “holy man” has allegedly been caught with his hands in the sacramental cookie jar? When I hear these types of stories, stories like that of Ted Haggard’s methamphetamines driven gay sexcapades or the standard pedophiliac priests and the Popes that cover for them, I always assume that they are guilty. Is that wrong, I wonder? Is it wrong that I enjoy seeing people who make a living telling other people how to run their lives gets caught in blatant hypocrisy? I think not.

The latest scandal comes from the Peach State (Georgia) where Eddie Long, the “Bishop”—I appreciate the irony of a protestant preachers adopting a Catholic title in this case—of a mega church has been accused of coercing four young men with cars, jewelry and vacations for sexual favors. The Catholic Priesthood must love this. I bet they are saying to their selves “Damn. Thank Christ it wasn’t one of ours this time.”

After watching a video of Eddie addressing the accusations in front of his flock of sheep and a short interview of Jamal Parris, one of Eddie’s accusers, I couldn’t help but ask myself who I thought was really telling the truth. The gods know, Parris and the other accusers could potentially have a lot to gain monetarily from a civil lawsuit from a preacher worth millions. On the other hand, Eddie, “The Bishop” looked guilty. So I looked to the literature to see if my gut was on to something.

I first looked to work profiling sexual preditors and how they coerce their victims. It seems that “The Bishops” position of authority provides the idea opportunity for sexual predation and coercion. Furthermore, the interactions between the victims and “the Bishop (e.g., the vacations, gifts, etc) could be construed as his “grooming” his victims. Moreover, the difficult family backgrounds of the accusers seem to make them ideal targets. In sum, the few details of this biblical mess, so far, jives with what one would expect from a classic case of sexual coercion (see Olson, Daggs, Ellevold & Rogers, 2007, for complete details).

Finally, my bullshit detector also jives with what seems to be suggestive and convicting—I mean convincing—correlations between the findings in the literature and the details of this story. Why does this matter? Well, considering that even normal adults have a 60% accuracy rate in detecting bullshit (see Vrij, Akehurst, Brown & Mann, 2006, for details about human lie detecting), a keen professional of human observation, such as myself, should be quite confident in his/her gut reactions. So by judging from the brief video of Parris and Long, I’m going to go out on a limb and say this guy is guilty. What do you think? Am I jumping the gun, or is this guy a fruity preditor is an expensive suit? The world wants to know….

By, Adam K. FettermanChristopher Hitchens, author of numerous books regarding the topic of atheism and religion and one of the “Four Horsemen of Atheism”, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer just before starting his latest book tour. There are some noticeable consequences of his diagnosis. One particular consequence of his illness is a national “Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day”. According to Jay Reeves and Hitchens, the origins of this prayer day are not exactly known. However, some may consider it spit in the face. Hitchens does not seem to see it this way, and thanks those who are praying for his good health, but also asserts it will do nothing more than make those praying feel better and if so, that is fine with him. However, according to Hitchens and Reeves, there are three types of prayers going on in his name. First, there are those praying for his health. Second are those praying for him to find god. Which god? It appears mostly the Christian one. Finally, there are the prayers for Hitchens to suffer a painful death, and that the torture continues in hell.

This third type, not only lends credence to ideas put forth about religion by Hitchens and other atheists, but it may also reflect a belief in a just world. Most people believe that things happen for a reason. That is, good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people (Pepitone & L’Armand, 1998). According to Pepitone and L’Armand, the strongest belief comes with the former, but there is still evidence that people believe in that latter. These beliefs are particularly strong amongst the religious (Pepitone & L’Armand, 1998). Perhaps because they believe that a god has a plan or has control the world. Therefore, it is not entirely surprising that web commentors and letter-writers are sending Hitchens messages that he is getting his “just desserts” and other horrendous diatribes. As a side note, a lot of these comments appear to be coming from those with a Christian background, of which many Christians would prefer to disassociate with. With that in mind, one may notice that this is not the way Christians ought to act. One possible explanation is that, when compared to Jewish individuals, Protestants view belief as more important than practice (Cohen, Siegel, & Rozin, 2002), though this explanation is merely speculation.

At any rate, Christopher Hitchens, as always, may the science of medicine keep you comfortable and with us for a long time to come.

-In two weeks: Part 2. Symbolic immortality.

Atheist Hitchens skipping prayer day in his honor. By Jay Reeves, Associated Press.

Unanswerable prayers. By Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair

Pepitone, A. & L’Armand, K. (1998). The justice and injustice of life events. European Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 581-597.

Just after the Rwanda genocide broke out in 1994, white expatriates were speedily evacuated from the place. Adam Jones (2006) wrote of a video record at the Caraes psychiatric Hospital in Ndera Kigali showing white individuals being evacuated while Hutus were almost outside the gates, and the Tutsis begged the military men for protection. One soldier yelled, “Solve your problems yourselves!”

The UN Genocide Convention has defined genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy in part or whole a national, ethnic racial or religious group as such.” Staub (2000) provides the social context which makes genocide of one group by another likely—difficult life conditions and group conflict. Cultural differences also come to play such as blind respect for authority, inflexible stratification within classes, and a history of devaluation in a group.

Not all members of the dominant group become perpetrators. There were the ‘ordinary Germans’ who did nothing while the Holocaust happened, while there were also countless Germans who defied authority and managed to rescue Jewish families in peril. In a genocide setting, there are the perpetrators, bystanders and rescuers. These categories can also be fluid, as noted by Monroe, when constant bystanders turn into rescuers, or when perpetrators who have engaged in massacres, rescue an individual from the other group. Monroe defines six critical aspects gathered from summaries of reports of these three groups which play a part in the role a group or individual makes: self image, personal suffering, identity, relational identity, integration of values with the individual’s sense of self, and a cognitive classification of the other. Perpetrators may perceive of themselves as victims and justify causing harm to the other group. Bystanders and perpetrators may hold greater value for community, and authority, rather than self-assertion. Personal suffering may also cause a group or an individual to empathize with the aggrieved group, but it may also heighten fear and defensiveness. While cultural and social aspects are important in determining attitudes and behavior, self images can also determine if people will act or remain passive in the face of genocide. Individuals who feel they have control over the situation may be forced to do something about it, as opposed to bystanders who, even if they also empathize with the aggrieved group, may feel helpless over the situation.

Jones A. (2006). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction

Monroe K. R. (2008). Cracking the Code of Genocide: The Moral Psychology of Rescuers, Bystanders, and Nazis during the Holocaust